India tops child deaths due to pneumonia and diarrhoea: study

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Of the projected 5.9 million deaths of children (aged less than five) in 2015 across the world, pneumonia was the top killer at 16 per cent, while diarrheoa came second at 9 per cent share globally.

With the deadline to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target ending in 2015, the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) of John Hopkins Center, in its report, indicated that India had fallen short of the MDG targets of reducing under five-year-olds’ child mortality by two-thirds from 1990 till 2015. However, according to the report, it had succeeded in implementing Mission Indradhanush aimed at proving vaccination to children in high-burden states.

Data collected by the IVAC in 2014 showed that the coverage of Hib — Haemophilus influenzae type B vaccine to prevent pneumonia — in India was only 20 per cent.

Worse, India was yet to take an official decision to introduce Pneumococcal Conjugate Caccine to prevent pneumonia even after 15 years of vaccine’s introduction, it said.

The study was conducted in 15 countries that have reported more cases of pneumonia and diarrheoa.